Related papers: From high-mass starless cores to high-mass protost…
The mass growth of protostars is a central element to the determination of fundamental stellar population properties such as the initial mass function. Constraining the accretion history of individual protostars is therefore an important…
We summarize some of the results obtained from Herschel surveys of the nearby star forming regions and the Galactic plane. We show that in the nearby star forming regions the starless core spatial surface density distribution is very…
By means of different physical mechanisms, the expansion of HII regions can promote the formation of new stars of all masses. RCW 120 is a nearby Galactic HII region where triggered star formation occurs. This region is well-studied - there…
The evolution of deeply embedded young stellar objects (YSOs) has traditionally been traced through dust continuum spectral energy distributions (SEDs), but the use of CO excitation as an evolutionary probe has not yet been explored due to…
The chemical changes of high-mass star-forming regions provide a potential method for classifying their evolutionary stages and, ultimately, ages. In this study, we search for correlations between molecular abundances and the evolutionary…
When studying the evolutionary stages of protostars that form in clusters, the role of any intracluster medium cannot be neglected. High foreground extinction can lead to situations where young stellar objects (YSOs) appear to be in earlier…
The temperature and density structure of molecular cloud cores are the most important physical quantities that determine the course of the protostellar collapse and the properties of the stars they form. Nevertheless, density profiles often…
The details of the physical process through which high-mass stars form remains nearly as much of a mystery now as it was when the Parkes radio telescope commenced operation. The energy output from high-mass stars influence, or directly…
The results from a single-dish molecular line survey of a set of 18 deeply embedded young stellar objects are summarized. More than 40 lines from 16 different species were observed with the JCMT, Onsala, IRAM 30m and SEST telescopes. The…
We are conducting a survey of several regions of high-mass star formation to assess their content and structure. The observations include Spitzer observations, ground-based optical and near-IR imaging surveys, and optical and IR spectra of…
Context: Observations of transitional disks give us an understanding of the formation of planets and planetary systems such as our own. But care must be taken in the identification of such sources: the higher spatial resolution of the…
The expansion of HII regions can trigger the formation of stars. An overdensity of young stellar objects (YSOs) is observed at the edges of HII regions but the mechanisms that give rise to this phenomenon are not clearly identified.…
Within the key project "Herschel M33 extended survey" (HerM33es), we are studying the physical and chemical processes driving star formation and galactic evolution in the nearby galaxy M33, combining the study of local conditions affecting…
High-mass stars form within star clusters from dense, molecular regions, but is the process of cluster formation slow and hydrostatic or quick and dynamic? We link the physical properties of high-mass star-forming regions with their…
Recent studies of the nearest star-forming clouds of the Galaxy at submillimeter wavelengths with the Herschel Space Observatory have provided us with unprecedented images of the initial conditions and early phases of the star formation…
Upcoming surveys with the Herschel Space Observatory will yield far-IR photometry of large samples of young stellar objects, which will require careful interpretation. We investigate the color and luminosity diagnostics based on Herschel…
Far-infrared spectroscopy reveals gas cooling and its underlying heating due to physical processes taking place in the surroundings of protostars. These processes are reflected in both the chemistry and excitation of abundant molecular…
Increasing evidence shows that most stars in the Milky Way, including the Sun, are born in star-forming regions containing also high-mass stars, but due to both observational and theoretical challenges, our comprehension of their chemical…
Background: low-mass stars are the dominant product of the star formation process, and they trace star formation over the full range of environments, from isolated globules to clusters in the central molecular zone. In the past two decades,…
The spectral energy distributions (SEDs), spanning the mid-infrared to millimeter wavelengths, of a sample of 13 high-mass protostellar objects (HMPOs) were studied using a large archive of 2-D axisymmetric radiative transfer models.…